Kochi airport closed down

Kochi: The flood waters entered the drainage near the operations side and spread to the parking bay.

Following this, the landing stopped at 1.05 pm. The Indigo flight from Mumbai was diverted to Coimbatore, and a Spice Jet flight returned to Bangalore. An Oman Air flight from Muscat was diverted to Thiruvananthapuram.

Of these, the Oman flight later landed in Kochi. However, a passenger who arrived at the airport in the afternoon to go to Chennai by an evening Spicejet flight said that he had to take the road route after the airline staff informed him that no plane was taking off and landing at the airport.

He also said that several passengers were seen stranded at the airport at that time.

The airport authorities said that they had opened a control room for giving information to the passengers at that time.

The release said that the decision to resume full-fledged operations was taken after the rate of increase in flood waters came down around 2.30 pm. The operations turned normal at 3.05 pm, and the situatioan was under control by the evening.

However, they added that the airport operations would be affected if the Periyar water level increased substantially following the opening of the shutters of the Cheruthoni dam.

Met predicts 2 more days of heavy rain

Malappuram, Kozhikode, Wayanad and Kannur during the next two days. Since all these districts are already affected badly because of the heavy rains, the situation is likely to worsen.

With water level in almost all dams in these districts rising, the government has directed NDRF and other agencies from the defence services to monitor the situation closely and be on standby for rescue and relief operations.

Met officials say the rainfall is expected to subside for day but on August 13 at least 10 districts are expected to receive heavy rainfall.